love. "No!" said he, "I put it to the touch
once, and I lost it all. Let her go,- with her
stony heart; and her beauty;- how set and
terrible her look is now, for all her loveliness
of feature! She is afraid I shall speak what
will require some stern repression. Let her
go. Beauty and heiress as she may be, she
will iiud it hard to meet with a truer heart
than mine. Let her go!"

And there was no tone of regret, or emotion
of any kind in the voice with which he
said good-bye; and the offered hand was
taken with a resolute calmness, and dropped
as carelessly as if it had been a dead and
withered flower. But none in his household
saw Mr. Thornton again that day. He was
busily engaged; or so he said.

Margaret's strength was so utterly exhausted
by these visits, that she had to
submit to much watching and petting, and
sighing "I-told-you-so's," from her aunt.
Dixon said she was quite as bad as she
had been on the first day she heard of
her father's death; and she and Mrs. Shaw
consulted as to the desirableness of delaying
the morrow's journey. But when, her aunt
reluctantly proposed a few days delay to
Margaret, the latter writhed her body as if
in acute suffering, and said:

"Oh! let us go. I cannot be patient here.
I shall not get well here. I want to forget."

So the arrangements went on; and Captain
Lennox came, and with him news of Edith
and the little boy; and Margaret found that
the indifferent, careless conversation of one
who, however kind, was not too warm and
anxious a sympathiser, did her good. She
roused up; and by the time that she knew
she might expect Higgins, she was able to
leave the room quietly, and await in her own
chamber the expected summons.

"Eh!" said he, as she came in, "to think
of th' oud gentleman dropping off as he did!
Yo might ha' knocked me down wi' a straw
when they telled me. 'Mr. Hale?' said I;
'him as was th' parson?' 'Ay,' said they.
'Then,' said I, 'there's as good a man gone as
ever lived on this earth, let who will be
t' other!' And I came to see yo, and tell yo
how grieved I were, but them women in th'
kitchen wouldn't tell yo I were there. They
said yo were ill, and butter me, but yo dunnot
look like th' same wench. And yo're going
to be a grand lady up i' London, aren't yo?"

"Not a grand lady," said Margaret, half
smiling.

"Well! Thornton said- says he, a day or
two ago, 'Higgins, have yo seen Miss Hale?'
'No,' says I; 'there's a pack o' women who
won't let me at her. But I can bide my time,
if she's ill. She and I knows each other
pretty well; and hoo'l not go doubting that
I'm main sorry for th' oud gentleman's death,
jest because I can't get at her and tell her so.'
And says he, 'Yo'll not have much time tor
to try and see her, my fine chap. She's not
for staying with us a day longer nor she can
help. She's got grand relations, and they're
carrying her off; and we sha'n't see her no
more.' 'Measter,' said I, 'if I dunnot see
her afore hoo goes, I'll strive to get up to
Lunnun next Whissuntide, that I will. I'll
not be baulked of saying her good-bye by any
relations whatsomdever.' But, bless yo, I
knowed yo'd come. It were only for to humour
the measter, I let on as if I thought yo'd
mappen leave Milton without seeing me."

"You're quite right," said Margaret.
"You only do me justice. And you'll not
forget me, I'm sure. If no one else in Milton
remembers me, I'm certain you will; and
papa too. You know how good and how
tender he was. Look, Higgins! here is his
bible. I have kept it for you. I can ill
spare it; but I know he would have liked
you to have it. I'm sure you'll care for it.
and study what is in it, for his sake."

"Yo may say that. If it were the deuce's
own scribble, and yo axed me to read in it
for yo'r sake, and th' oud gentleman's, I'd do
it. Whatten's this, wench? I'm not going
for to take yo'r brass, so dunnot think it.
We've been great friends, 'bout the sound o'
money passing between us."

"For the children- for Boucher's children,"
said Margaret, hurriedly. "They may need
it. You've no right to refuse it for them. I
would not give you a penny," she said, smiling;
"don't think there's any of it for you."

"Well, wench! I can nobbut say, Bless yo!
and bless yo!- and amen."

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FOURTH.

IT was very well for Margaret that the
extreme quiet of the Harley Street house,
during Edith's recovery from her confinement,
gave her the natural rest which she needed.
It gave her time to comprehend the sudden
change which had taken place in her circumstances
within the last two months. She
found herself at once an inmate of a luxurious
house, where the bare knowledge of the
existence of every trouble or care seemed
scarcely to have penetrated. The wheels of
the machinery of daily life were well oiled,
and went along with delicious smoothness.
Mrs. Shaw and Edith could hardly make
enough of Margaret, on her return to what
they persisted in calling her home. And
she felt that it was almost ungrateful in her
to have a secret feeling that the Helstone
vicarage- nay, even the poor little house at
Milton, with her anxious father and her invalid
mother, and all the small household
cares of comparative poverty, composed her
idea of home. Edith was impatient to get
well, in order to fill Margaret's bed-room with
all the soft comforts, and pretty nick-knacks,
with which her own abounded. Mrs. Shaw
and her maid found plenty of occupation in
restoring Margaret's wardrobe to a state of
elegant variety. Captain Lennox was easy,
kind, and gentlemanly; sate with his wife in
her dressing-room an hour or two every day;